Mariana González, the daughter of the Venezuelan opponent Edmundo González, reported this Thursday through her profile on the social network X of the release of her husband, Rafael Tudares Bracho. “I am pleased to report that, after 380 days of unjust arbitrary detention and, having suffered, for more than a year, an inhumane situation of forced disappearance, my husband Rafael Tudares Bracho has returned home this morning,” Mariana González said in a message. The lawyer’s family had reported last December that the prisoner had been sentenced to 30 years in prison for “terrorism”, “criminal association” and “conspiracy”.
“It has been a stoic and very hard fight for more than a year, in which we finally achieved the release of Rafael, and we aspire, sooner rather than later, to his full freedom, to which he is entitled,” continued the daughter of the Venezuelan opponent in her writing on the social network. This Tuesday, Mariana González issued a statement in which she denounced that the judicial file that sentenced her husband lacked “evidential support,” calling it “a fraud on justice and human rights.”
In her note, González added that in the trial against her husband “there are no witnesses, nor is there evidence, nor demonstrable facts against Rafael that constitute crimes. The few pieces of evidence that were used against him have nothing to do with him.”
The daughter of the Venezuelan opponent also stated that she had been the subject of extortion attempts in embassies to condition Tudares’ freedom. The couple has two children, ages six and seven. The lawyer, of whom no political activity is known, was arrested by the political police on January 7, 2025, while the children were at school. His whereabouts were not known for 40 days.
Tudares was sentenced very quickly by the Third Trial Court with special jurisdiction in matters against terrorism. José Vicente Haro, defense attorney for Tudares, stated that he had not had access to the court file and was unaware of the details of the sentence. The lawyer was arrested just three days before the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro, amid strong protests from the opposition, including those of Edmundo González, over the electoral fraud committed in the July 2024 elections.
Maduro was arrested in Caracas on the 3rd in an operation by US special forces. After her capture, the former vice president of the Chavista regime, Delcy Rodríguez, in contact with the Donald Trump Administration, has occupied the head of state. This new period, monitored by Washington, has led to dozens of releases of political prisoners.
“Especially, I am grateful for the support to the Team of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Panama, who always followed up and advocated in this case, within the scope of their humanitarian powers,” Mariana González continued this Thursday in her
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